One of the moment’s men to watch is Australian actor Joel Edgerton. After writing last year’s Ozpocalypse thriller The Rover, he writes and stars in this feature-directing debut. It’s a production of chiller specialists Blumhouse (Insidious), and the ads, with their slogan “Dare you open?”, suggest something routinely creepy. (What could be in that gift-wrapped package? Dead kittens? A spare limb of the Human Centipede?)
The Gift proves to be considerably more sophisticated. Rebecca Hall and Jason Bateman play a couple who move into a sleek modernist house in LA. They run into Gordo (Edgerton), Bateman’s old schoolmate, who seems over-eager to welcome them to town. We think we’re in for a routine home-invasion thriller, but Edgerton takes the story in unexpected directions. Bateman gets to do something other than play affably flustered, Hall is on steely form playing detective, and Edgerton’s Gordo hovers to discreetly creepy effect, while Eduard Grau’s widescreen camerawork makes tense use of the cold, polished spaces of the couple’s dream home. Of all Blumhouse’s productions, this is the one that really deserved to be called Insidious.
